Understanding Feature Stories

• A feature story is a detailed and descriptive writing style that focuses on personal experiences, emotions, and background to connect with readers on an emotional level.

Differences Between News Stories and Feature Stories:

• News stories emphasize facts and use the inverted pyramid structure, placing the most important information first.
• Feature stories focus on descriptive details, emotions, and engaging storytelling.

Types of Feature Stories:

• Human Interest: These stories highlight people's struggles or triumphs, aiming to resonate emotionally with the reader.
• Informative Features: These provide useful information in an engaging manner.
• Historical Features: These recount past events or significant moments in history.
• Travelogue: These describe a location and the people the writer encountered while traveling.

News Defined:

• News is any oral or written report of an event that has happened, is happening, or will happen, of interest to the reader.
• News is reported through airwaves and in written form.
• A news gives the reader an idea of what is currently happening around them, particularly on matters of interest to the community
• News is generally written and based on facts.
• News is a timely factual report of events, ideas, or situations that are interesting or significant to people.
• The life span of news may be short, expiring quickly, and can be buried when new angles or topics are broadcast. News is any information that is significant to a particular set of readers, qualified by its relevance and reader interest.
• News is a reportage of accurate facts, events, and ideas that interest a broad audience.
• The bases of all news are facts, interest, and readers.
• News is a timely reportage of events grounded on facts, considering nearness, importance, impact, and public interest.

Elements or Characteristics of Good News:

• Timeliness or Immediacy: Highlights the newest angle of the story, making the most recent events more appealing.
• Conflict: Includes the physical and mental struggles of individuals, which are inherently newsworthy.
• Proximity or Nearness: Focuses on the nearness of interest and appeal to the reader based on geographical or personal relevance.
• Accuracy: Centers around the factualness of news as a purveyor of truth.
• Significance: Relates to the importance of the news to the reader.
• Prominence and Names: Indicates that popular names may influence situations and actions, making them more interesting.
• Drama: Includes stories that evoke strong emotional responses, such as crying or laughing.
• Oddity or Unusualness: Covers phenomena or events that deviate from the norm.
• Romance and Adventure: Stories about love may ignite the taste of the reading public.
• Progress: Attaining breakthrough and achieving scientific discoveries are given much attention by the readers.
• Animals: Stories of animals, especially those with talents are good reading matter because of their human-interest value.
• Numbers: Statistics or figures have the power to shake the conviction of the audience.
• Sex: Stories of sex are usually related to stories of romance, marriage, divorce, and varied activities of men and women.
• Emotion: Includes the various human responses such as the innate desire for food, clothing, shelter

Steps in Writing a Feature Story:

• Pick Your Subject
• Write a tentative title
• Pinpoint the highlights with specific details
• Use devices and situations which will hold the reader's interest
• Rewrite
• Decide on your title

Structure of a Feature Story:

• Feature stories use a pyramid structure, arranging details from least to most important, starting with a novelty lead.

Types of Novelty Lead:

• Narrative Lead: This draws readers into the story by allowing them to relate to the characters.
• Descriptive Lead: Paints a mental picture of the subject for the reader.
• Quotation Lead: This uses a statement from a well-known person or celebrity.
• Question Lead: This poses a thought-provoking question to captivate the reader and lead them
• Staccato Lead: Consists of a series of words or phrases punctuated by periods, commas, or dashes for emphasis.
• Punch Lead: Presents a short, striking one-sentence statement.
• Astonisher: This lead uses an exclamatory sentence to grab attention.
• One Word Lead: Uses a significant word to quickly capture the reader's interest.
• Parody Lead: Uses a parody of a famous quotation, song, poem, book, or movie title to engage the reader.
• Background Lead: Describes an event in which the background overshadows the individuals, often used for stories about carnivals, festivals, dances, and similar events.

Major Divisions of Journalism:

• Written journalism, oral journalism, and visual journalism.
• Written journalism includes periodicals, newspapers, and magazines.

Newspaper Characteristics:

• Newspapers print more news without a special cover, use newsprint paper, and feature the hottest news on the front page.

Print Media:

• Includes periodicals, journals, books, graphic media, and brochures.
• Radio is an example of oral journalism.

Oral-Visual Journalism:

• Encompasses television, movies, and documentaries.

Broadcast Media:

• Includes radio and television.

Film Media:

• Includes movies and documentaries.
• Journalism involves gathering, writing, editing, and presenting news and information to the public via newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and the internet.
• Journalism informs the public and holds power accountable in democratic societies.

Aid to Students

• Provides opportunity for interesting writing
• Develops students' power of observation and discrimination concerning relative merits of news articles
• Serves as outlet and motivation for journalistic writing
• Develops qualities of cooperation, tact, accuracy, tolerance, responsibility and leadership

Aid to School and Community:

• Informs the community of the work of the school
• Publishes school news
• Makes known the achievements of the school
• Helps unify the school
• Develops right standard of conduct
• Provides an outlet for students' suggestions for the betterment of the school
• Develops better interschool relationship
• Develops school spirit Develops cooperation between the parents and the school

Journalism Functions:

• Information Function: Conveys information about local and community events.
• Opinion Function: Persuades readers toward a certain viewpoint.
• Education Function: Educates through various contents.
• Watchdog Function: Monitors events in the school and guards the young ones.
• Laboratory Function: Serves as a teaching tool for budding journalists.
• Documentation Function: Records important school events and student achievements.
• Entertainment Function: Provides companionship, especially when alone.
• Developmental Function: Hones future journalists and enables reflection on performance and improvements.

Parts of a Newspaper or Campus Paper:

• Nameplate: Engraved or printed name, logo, or symbol of the newspaper, including the publication's scope, date of articles, volume, and number of the release.
• Headline: The title of any news story.
• Ears: Small boxes on either side of the nameplate, usually containing teasers or advertisements.
• Banner: The principal headline, usually the largest and boldest font across the front page, indicating the most important news of the day.
• Running Head: A type of head with two or more lines.
• Deck: Located below the main headline, providing more information.
• Lead: The beginning of a news story, which can be a word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph.
• News Story: The whole story or part of the story, composed of the lead and supporting text.
• Byline: The signature, name, or pseudonym of the reporter.
• Box: News material enclosed by line rules.
• Cut: A metal plate bearing the newspaper's illustration.
• Cutline: The text accompanying photos or other artwork, commonly known as a caption.
• Over line: Cutline written or shown above the photo.
• Kicker: A tagline above but smaller than the headline, offering stimulating small details, also known as a teaser.
• Hammer: A kicker-type element, but larger than the headline.
• Credit Line: Acknowledges the source of a story or illustration from external materials or individuals, often used for foreign news and dateline news.
• Editorial: Reflects the soul of a newspaper or magazine, representing the collective opinions of the editorial board on the hottest issues.
• Column: A recurring article written by a columnist, who is knowledgeable about the subject.
  • It is a regular feature in a publication.
  • It is personality-driven.
  • It explicitly contains an opinion or point of view.
• Op-ed: A newspaper article expressing opinions from a writer unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board.
• Letter to the Editor: Communication from readers on issues of concern, intended for publication.

Common Topics in Letters to the Editor:

• Supporting or opposing an editorial stance, or responding to another writer's letter.
• Commenting on current issues debated by a governing body.
• Remarking on materials in previous editions, either critically or praisingly.
• Correcting perceived errors or misrepresentations.
• Editorial Cartoon: A caricature containing a political or social message related to current events or personalities.
• Masthead: Also called the flag, shows the publication's name, volume and number of release, and the names and positions of staff members.

Explore feature stories: descriptive writing connecting emotionally with readers through personal experiences and emotions. Learn how they differ from news stories, which emphasize facts and the inverted pyramid structure. Discover types like human interest, informative, historical, and travelogues.